Photo: Volvo Polestar Racing

Volvo buys Performance division from Polestar

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Volvo has acquired Polestar Performance, the road car tuning business owned by Christian Dahl, to officially incorporate the operation as its performance sub-brand, while the racing team will be split off and continue on under the control of Dahl.

Volvo will use the Polestar brand as the model name for its high performance cars, with the company aiming to sell 750 of its Polestar model V60 and S60s this year, with aims to increase this to 1,000-1,500 as part of Volvo Cars AB.

All employees of Polestar will transfer over to Volvo as part of the deal, while the racing team will be spun off as a new company under the ownership of Dahl, with the name to be decided.

The racing team, which competes in the V8 Supercars Championship with Garry Rogers Motorsport, developing the team’s 5.0 litre V8 engine for the Volvo S60, as well as fielding three S60s in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship for Thed Björk, Fredrik Ekblom and Prince Carl Philip Bernadotte, will continue to user the Polestar name to represent Volvo’s performance car division in motorsport.

“As Polestar becomes the performance car arm of Volvo Cars, Volvo will present motorsport under this brand,” confirmed a Polestar spokesperson. “The racing team formerly known as Polestar will continue under the ownership of Christian Dahl but under a new name. Polestar will continue racing in association with Christian Dahl’s new team.”

Polestar confirmed that there will be no immediate impact to the company’s programmes in the STCC or V8 Supercars Championships, with the Polestar name continuing to be used by Dahl’s ‘new’ racing company.

“We have ongoing engagements in both STCC and V8 Supercars which now Polestar will continue throughout the duration of these contracts. Beyond that, Volvo and Christian have been working together for many years and have a good, trust based relationship. So, we have reached an agreement with Christian which means he will continue to race with his newly named team and Polestar will continue racing in association with Christian Dahl’s new team.”